Michigan ranks near the bottom in a number of categories when grading public education. / Detroit Free Press

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The Detroit Free Press Editorial Board

You hate to dwell on the negative outcomes from Michigan’s spectacular disinvestment in education over the last decade, but EdTrust Midwest’s latest report really highlights how far we’ve fallen in a way that hasn’t been illustrated before.

The report shows that when you compare Michigan’s fourth-grade reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests from 2003 to 2013, the state is one of only six nationwide that experienced a loss in achievement.

Over the same time period, Michigan fourth-graders gained just one point on the NAEP in math — good enough for second to last place nationwide.

The picture gets worse when you look at important sub-groups of Michigan children. Michigan’s African-American kids rank dead last in math and fourth from last in reading on the NAEP test in 2013. It’s worst in Detroit, a district that has been awful for as long as anyone can remember, and that has not improved the trajectory of educational outcomes under state control.

The state’s Latino students ranked among the best performers nationwide 10 years ago, but have fallen to among the worst.

And last year, Michigan posted the third-largest gap between low-income and high-income students on the NAEP fourth-grade math test, highlighting an overall educational inequality that’s unacceptably pronounced.

There are lots of differences between what happened in the states that have moved furthest ahead and what we’re doing in Michigan. What’s frustrating, though, is that we’ve known all along what works and how improvement happens. We’re just unwilling to do it.

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Standards matter, and while states like Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida and Tennessee have put strong ones in place and stuck with them, Michigan has flipped around, made excuses and fought them over and over. Right now, we’re just beginning to develop the kind of standards infrastructure that should pay dividends down the road. Other states are already soaring ahead.

In particular, Michigan has resisted holding schools accountable for overall performance. We’ve also indulged the massive expansion of charter schools without any regard to quality control. All schools should either be improving or closing, and it’s the state’s responsibility to ensure that standard exists and is enforced.

Teacher performance evaluation and support are also critical, and tough to get right. Other states started long ago trying to find the balance between identifying areas where teachers need help and being punitive with poor performers, and are fine-tuning systems that encourage improvement. Michigan, meanwhile, is just now piloting a teacher evaluation system, and still struggling to get to the place where it’s infused into the education infrastructure.

There’s scattered resistance in Lansing to support the funding that needs to accompany new teacher evaluation systems, but Gov. Rick Snyder must insist that the investments hold. Training teachers is one of the best ways to help raise student outcomes, and for too long, Michigan has done a lousy job of providing that kind of support.

Money matters, too, and the fight here over funding has held our schools back. Overall, our schools rank in about the middle when it comes to funding, but our outcomes are much lower. Some people believe that proves there’s no link between money and performance, so they’ve resisted boosting investment. Others think spending more always equals better results, so they’re pushing for more cash without strings or restraints. The stalemate between the two means no progress, though, as we wallow in limbo.

Snyder insists he has invested in schools because he’s helping them manage unfunded retirement liabilities. But it’s still true that he has cut the foundation grant, money that goes directly into classrooms. If Michigan were as committed to moving forward as the states that are doing best, that cut would never have been countenanced. Ever.

Dead last isn’t where Michigan needs to be in education, nor anywhere near the bottom. A lost decade is behind us now; the only way to make the next one better is to focus on the things that matter, and stick with plans that will produce improvement.